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Fido and Me – Lockout!

Fido locked me out of the house. In the process, he locked himself in.

“Get me out of here!” he whimpered from behind the door.

“I’m trying, you big lug, but the deadbolt seems to have been tripped.”

“What’s a deadbolt?”

“A deadbolt, Fido, is the one lock on the door that I don’t have a key for! I’ve never even used the deadbolt and don’t even have a key for it. How the heck did the deadbolt get tripped?”

I tried to put the sequence together and that took a little time.

“Fido, was anyone in the house when I was gone?”

“I have to pee.”

“I know, I know. Me too!”

Fido allowed as to how no one had been in the house, not that this scenario made any sense. What, trip a deadbolt and leap off the deck or something?

I called Bill Sauser for help, even though I knew it was dinnertime. A hardworking locksmith has to eat. Embarrassing all the way around, but I figure Bill’s just about seen it all.

“Bill, I need some help. My dog locked me out of the house.” There was an extended silence on the other end of the call.

“Run that by me again.”

“My dog locked me out of the house.”

He said he’d be right over, but that can mean just about anything.

On the other side of the door, Fido stirred, whined, and then jumped on the door. His front paws grazed the doorknob. A-ha! A flash of understanding passed my way. Fido, for whatever reason, had jumped up on the door at some point when I was away.

In so doing, he must have somehow tripped the deadbolt that I never use.

We waited and Fido again began to whimper. By sheer stroke of luck I was carrying my Kindle in my pack.
About three minutes later, I also had a copy of “My Dog Skip.” I lay prone in front of the door and whispered in the crack between the door and the threshold.

“It’s story time,” I said to Fido. I heard Fido on the side of the door, lying down and putting his snoot on his paws.

“Hey hey hey hey!”

“Skip was special,” I whispered to Fido. “He could play football, and with a little help Skip could drive a car. He could run the 100-yard dash in 7.8 seconds, a world record for fox terriers.”

“Skip reminds me of me!” Fido said.

That’s about the time Bill showed up. Embarrassing.

It took Bill abut two seconds to open the deadbolt. What had happened was that, in fact, Fido had tripped the deadbolt. There was a scratch right near the deadbolt knob.